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Hi all, I have a large-ish music library, around 30,000 files, mostly mp3 and a few flac.

I've shared the music folder on my PC and want to add it to Sonos app so I can play it on my speakers.

I do the 'add library' steps, give the path, username, password and that's all fine.

On the Sonos home screen I think see the Music Library with a message that it is syncing.

So far, so good.

However... When I return to check on it later, the Library icon is gone from the home screen and the library is not shown in settings.

I go through the process again and the same thing happens, I've tried it 5 times now.

I've rebooted the PC in case of any issues there (no errors showing there).

I'm sharing this library successfully to Plex so I'm pretty sure my library / PC is not the problem.

Also, I've added Plex to Sonos and that can play fine.

I could just use Plex but I'd rather not be tied to it and would like to see the native Sonos library interface.

I'm using the latest version of the Sonos app for Android 13 on a Google 7a.   PC is Win 11.  Everything on the same WiFi network.

Any ideas..?

 

When you added it using the PC app, which option did you use? Note that an actual file share is no longer required if sharing from the PC with the Sonos app installed (though as you are using Plex you likely need to still use that).

 

Hi, thanks for the reply.  First thing to say is that I don't currently have Sonos installed on the PC where my music library is.  I had simply shared the music library folder over my local network.

Next thing is that the 'add library's function In seeing in the Android app is very different o what you shared above - see below.

No problem to install Sonos on the PC if that's the best thing to do - I'll await your reply...

Install the Sonos Windows controller. It also installs an HTTP service that will provide access for the Sonos system to your local files, avoiding potential sharing gremlins. 

Hi, thanks for the reply.  First thing to say is that I don't currently have Sonos installed on the PC where my music library is.  I had simply shared the music library folder over my local network.

Next thing is that the 'add library's function In seeing in the Android app is very different o what you shared above - see below.

No problem to install Sonos on the PC if that's the best thing to do - I'll await your reply...

There is no “simply share” here, file shares are a challenge for many reasons. As @ratty says, install the Sonos software on the PC that is hosting the files. Do NOT try and use the Android app to configure a PC share.

Thanks, all.  I'm now setting up the music library via Sonos on the PC.  I'll report back shortly with a Plex/Sonos comparison. 

One thing I'm really keen to find out is whether Sonos allows me to reference existing playlists (m3u files).  I have a lot of these in my MusicBee library and with Plex it seems crazy complicated to use them and actually involves duplicating them into the Plex library then modifying the XML, doing something I don't understand with Postman etc. so I'm hoping Sonos allows me to simply point to those existing m3u files and present them via the app.  Let's see.

Next step will be to try to set up Wake On LAN for my PC but that's for another day...

 

Sonos supports M3U (and WPL and PLS). Absolute and relative pathnames.

And the winner is.... Sonos

Works fine.

Plex doesn't support existing m3u playlists (seems incredible but it's true) so I'll ditch that and stick with Sonos.

Thank you all for your help.

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